WEATHER RAINS DOWN ON HENLEY’S OPENING DAY
Weather delays racing schedule by three hours on first day of Canada’s premier rowing event
Rowers take their boats off the water as weather disrupts racing on the first day of heats at the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta Tuesday.
Will it be smooth sailing for the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta taking place this week in St. Catharines?
All you need to do is look up at the sky for the answer.
Whether boats leave the starting line for 500- to 2,000-metre races as scheduled, in rapid-fire fashion, depends entirely on the weather.
Barring high winds capable of capsizing boats on Martindale Pond and thunderstorms, the first finals in the 137th edition of the national club championships should get underway with the senior women’s single at 3:18 p.m. Thursday.
But will it?
“You’re asking me about Thursday? I’m just trying to get through today,” regatta chair Peter Scott said after fast-moving storm cells made a soggy mess of the racing schedule Tuesday.
Cloudbursts that sent hundreds of athletes, coaches and volunteers scurrying for cover on Henley Island delayed the schedule by about three hours.
In all, 95 finals will be decided by the time the premier event on the Canadian rowing calendar wraps up Sunday afternoon, weather permitting, of course.
Eighteen finals are on tap Thursday, 17 Friday and 28 and 32, respectively, Saturday and Sunday, including the men’s championship eight for the Craig Memorial Trophy, the marquee event of the Royal Canadian Henley and the final race of the regatta.
A total 138 rowing clubs, including five from Niagara, are registered to compete at a worldclass regatta in which only gold medals are awarded.
The number of clubs is up 14 from last year, as are entries: 2,149 from 2,055.
Scott said the numbers for junior racing remain solid, while entries are up for the senior — 23 and older — categories.
“Senior racing just seems to be up and down. The senior events have seemed to come back a little bit and re-corrected themselves over the past two years,” he added.
There are waiting lists for the men’s and women’s championship singles, as well as for the senior women’s pair.
A men’s and women’s single dash are among the four para events that have been added to
the lineup.
“The events that we were hosting throughout the year are starting to get full,” Scott said of rowing in the para divisions.
In previous years, those events would have been cancelled due to a lack of entries.
“Para is just having a difficult time getting traction here in Canada. When the U.S. para national team coach said, ‘We’re coming with three coxed fours,’ you open up the arms, and you bring them in and accommodate for them.”
All but seven clubs are from North America.
Three are from Great Britain — Molesey Boat Club, Nottinghamshire County and Oxford Brookes University — and one each from Australia, Swan River; Brazil, Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas; Mexico, Club Espana; and South Africa, St. Stithians College.
There is a wide fluctuation in the size of crews.
Eight clubs have their gold medal hopes riding on the shoulders of a single athlete, while St. Catharines Rowing Club has the most entries, with 96.
Right behind, with 85 boats registered to go to the start line, is Community Rowing from Brighton, Mass., followed by Calgary, Los Gatos of Los Gatos, Calif., 67 each; Washtenaw Rowing, Ann Arbor, Mich., 62; and Riverside, Cambridge, Mass., 58.
Ridley Graduate Boat Club has 23 entries, South Niagara 21 and the Notre Dame and Niagara Falls rowing clubs 19 and 17, respectively.